Focus on Scotland’s digital future – Education Debate
On Monday I attended the latest “Digital Future Debate“, one of a number of seminars looking at IT, Innovation and Entrepreneurial skills in young people, and its potential positive impact on Scottish businesses.
Focusing on Education, the event gathered together a wide number of relevant parties including educators, policy makers, business owners and (most importantly!) young people. Panel members included among others, Sunday Herald business editor - Colin Donald, Raymond O’Hare (Regional Director of Microsoft Scotland), Kirk Ramsay (Chief Executive of the Science Centre), Joe Wilson (SQA Business Manager) and David Kelly (one of our web hosting clients!)..
In summary, the event generated a lot of good discussion, including debate on the “graduate skills gap” topic that I recently blogged on, with a representative from University of the West of Scotland claiming to be fully aware of the “relevancy” issues surrounding the teaching of ICT and Technology within Education Institutions, and confirming their plans to change it with some rather radical (and greatly welcomed) different approaches to traditional teaching. Colin Donaldson introduced the sessions with the question “Does business do enough to help education produce people with the required skills?” I’d argue that the issue is the inverse… Having knocked on a few educational doors over the years to see how we (as a small company operating on the “front line”) can help guide coursework etc, it’s clear that many in the traditional eductional world want to go it alone.
With regard technology in schools (primary and secondary), it was generally believed that even today, it’s the kids that are teaching the teachers, but there was some disagreement on whether online tools such as blogs, wikis, facebook and bebo, instant messaging etc were appropriate for the classroom. Personally I welcome them – the kids are already using them outside school, and as Joe Wilson pointed out, by using a combination of all these online apps they are effectively building their own “personal learning environments”, in which the potential to “learn” is often far greater than in the traditional classroom environment.
All in all – it was actually quite positive, with the future of education and it’s digital input looking promising, but as with all of these focus groups and debates, we now need to act rather than keep talking a good game-plan.
Tags: debate, Education, industry, scotland, skills, university
November 19th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Having recently graduated, I share your concerns regarding the skill gap which is apparent in todays graduates.
Specifically within the creative industry, I share Ken Robinson’s views that education kills creativity.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
It’s a fascinating presentation which demonstrates that our educational system needs to be “updated”.
Hope you find it interesting.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Hi
This is the 1st write up I have come across about this event.
How do you see the structure of education changing?
A few educators and others are working on a Wiki to look at education in the year 2020 http://education2020.wikispaces.com/ Be great if you can add your voice
Ian
PS Andrew The answer is ‘Yes’ So how can a system be put in place to do it differently but still produce the qualifications that employers want?
November 21st, 2008 at 10:56 pm
How do I see things progressing?.. Students setting their own curriculums, more “skills based” learning, more “learning through doing” (and learning through “play” – see http://theplayethic.typepad.com/), more industry led courses (or collaboration with the learning institutions), more exploitation of the technologies and web based tools in the classroom (instead of the current fear of them), more creativity, more fun. If only it was like that in my day
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Just had an invite to a seminar in London next week from the Westminster Education Forum entitled “Technology and Education”
This seminar will examine the Government’s ambitious programme to transform Britain’s schools through technology.
http://www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk/educationforum/booktechnology.html